


Songs You Know by Heart

by Sorrel



Series: somewhere i have never travelled [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Belligerent Sexual Tension, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Rule 63, a canon-appropriate amount of singing, rule 63!Bilbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-09 10:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11666871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel/pseuds/Sorrel
Summary: "That first night, when the ridiculous little round door is opened to his knock, he doesn’t even see her, not at first."Being an account of the early acquaintance of Thorin II Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, and Bryony Baggins, Good Thief of Erebor and Green Lady of the Dale, as was never recorded in the Red Book of Westmarch.For one thing, there's considerably more shouting.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the same universe as "go home, or make a home" but definitely does not need you have to read that for this to make sense. This fic is finished and just going through final edits; I plan to post about one chapter a week throughout August.

That first night, when the ridiculous little round door is opened to his knock, he doesn’t even see her, not at first. There's a wizard blocking the way, looking terribly oversized and out of place in the burglar’s home, with great clouds of pipe-smoke around his head and a fiendish grin on his weathered face. Thorin will never admit it, but he's actually somewhat relieved to see him there.

"Gandalf," he says, and the wizard steps back to let him in. "I thought you said this place would be easy to find."

He slings his cloak from his shoulders and nods to the dwarves clustered in hallway at his left, trying not to let himself make a count. _Dwalin, and Balin, and Fili and Kili and-_ It will be enough. It will _have_ to be enough.

"I lost my way, twice. Wouldn't have found it at all, had it not been for that mark on the door."

"Mark?" someone cries, from behind the wizard's stooped frame. "Gandalf the Gray, if you put a mark on my freshly-painted door, so help me-"

Gandalf looks like he's hiding a smile very badly. "Only a little one," he soothes, "and easily removed. Thorin, allow me to introduce our host, Bryony Baggins."

And then he steps aside, and Thorin lays eyes on the burglar.

He's seen hobbits before, in the border-towns of the Shire, though he's only rarely had dealings with them directly. They're a reclusive people, suspicious of outsiders in general and dwarves in particular, and he knows little about them, save for their great love of creature comforts and their skill with growing things. He was dubious of Gandalf's claim to have found a suitable thief among their number, but willing enough to take his advice—after all, the wizard made his investment in their quest very clear, when he tracked Thorin down in Bree. He wouldn't deliberately cripple their chances with a poor choice of burglar, no matter how unlikely on the surface. Which is exactly what he told Dís, when his sister found out he'd be going to the Shire. At the time, he even believed it.

Looking at her now, Thorin feels all of his doubts come roaring back.

It's not her size that dismays him, though he knows she'd seem the veriest child to the eyes of men. Durin's folk were forged close to stone, and she reaches nearly to his chin, though he is tall for a dwarf. She is slender—naught but half as wide as a dwarven woman would be, with her shoulders barely as thick as his hips—but that's common of hobbits, as he understands it, as are her oversized ears and her childishly bare chin. She has hair enough on her head to be the envy of any dwarven maid, an opulence of rose-gold curls left loose across her shoulders and down nearly to her hips, and there's curves enough under her loose cotton dress. She bears no scar or callous, but her forearms and calves are lightly roped with muscle, and there's dirt under her nails.

And when he finishes his examination and looks back to her face, there's a measured sharpness in her pale gray eyes that no youngling could possess.

No, she's no child, this would-be burglar. She's something far worse.

Gandalf clears his throat, letting him know that the pause between them has gone on far too long. "And this, of course, is Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of our company."

The halfling's gaze does not waver from his. "At your service, and your family's," she murmurs, and bobs a surprisingly deep curtsey with a swish of her full skirts.

"And at yours," Thorin replies automatically, though his bow is rather less deep in return than it should be, distracted as he is by sending a disbelieving glance at Gandalf. "Tell me, Miss Baggins, have you done much fighting?"

A small frown of puzzlement mars the smooth line of her brow. "Well, if you must know, I'm a fair hand at conkers. It's all in the wrist, really."

Her gentle sarcasm isn't lost on him, but dwarves are not so easily deflected. "Axe or sword, which do you prefer?" he persists. "You seem small for the warhammer, though I've been surprised before."

Her eyes go narrow now, the first beginnings of temper starting to cloud across her delicate face. "Haven't met a thing my walking-stick couldn't handle," she snaps. "It even keeps away the muggers up by Bree, when I have cause to wander so far."

More sarcasm. Wonderful.

"As I thought," Thorin says, and knows that his voice is heavy with frustration. This madcap plan hinges on a thief talented enough to steal the greatest treasure from beneath the claws of a dragon, and Gandalf led him to the door of a _halfling homewife._ "She seems naught but a nursemaid."

"Well that's an insult by any measure," Miss Baggins retorts, before anyone else can respond. "Though perhaps dwarven nursemaids are rather less vigorous than their hobbit counterparts, if _yours_ allowed you out into the world with such an absolutely appalling lack of manners. Aren't your parents ashamed of you? Were you raised in a barn?"

Thorin gapes at her, at the hectic flush of anger on her cheeks and the flash in her gray eyes, and finds himself rather overwhelmed by how much she puts him in mind of his sister.

"Honestly!" Miss Baggins huffs, when he fails to make any sort of cogent reply. "Dwarves!" And then she turns with a great swirl of her skirts and storms off down the hallway before anyone can collect their jaws long enough to reply.

Thorin takes a deep breath. _You'll paint yourself a worse fool than she, if you lose your temper,_ he reminds himself, and makes himself smirk at the assembled company. "Well, she's got spirit, at least," he says mildly, and the collective sigh of relief could likely stir the curtains, were there any nearby. "I came here expecting a halfling, not a snarling badger in her hole!"

Gandalf looks like he's hiding a smile very badly. "Hobbits are hospital folk, generally. But they can be fierce enough, when provoked—and I do believe our dear hostess had provocation enough, before you arrived." He raises one shaggy eyebrow at the others. "Isn't that right, gentlemen?"

"Er," says Fili.

"Um," says Kili.

Miss Baggins' temper suddenly seems entirely more understandable—not that he'll admit as much in front of the lads. "Go on, I'll be there in just a moment," Thorin says, and waits until they grumble off down the hall to turn back to Gandalf. "Badgers aside, wizard, you said you'd provide me a burglar, and yet here I am and there's none to be found."

"Don't be so quick to doubt my judgement just yet, Thorin Oakenshield," Gandalf says, though in truth he looks rather amused. "You'll see. Hobbits are remarkably light on their feet, and have small magics that allow them to pass unseen if they choose. Too, Smaug is well acquainted with the smell of dwarf, but hobbit will be unknown to him. She’s the best chance you have to retrieve Arkenstone.”

“If you say so,” Thorin says doubtfully. She certainly has a dragon's temper, but so does his sister, and Dís hasn't managed to face down a fire-drake in single combat. (Yet.) “She doesn't seem like she's very interested in joining the company, however. 'A sure thing,' was I believe the phrase that you used in your letter."

"Yes, hrm, well, I'm sure it'll work out," Gandalf says, looking shifty. "Just give her a little time to get used to the idea."

"Well, she has the evening, but we ride in the morning whether she joins us or not," Thorin says. "We don't have much time left to waste if we want to reach Erebor before the winter snows."

Gandalf frowns. "You ride already? I thought you were hoping for more to join you from the Iron Hills."

Thorin shakes his head. "I just left a meeting with the seven lords," he says heavily. "We thirteen are all that answer the call of glory. Fourteen, if your hobbit-lass proves willing. Come, let's find the others. I'd prefer not to tell it but once."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

His kin cluster around him as he follows them into the dining room, and he makes his greetings, slapping backs and butting foreheads liberally. Some of the company, like Dwalin or his nephews, he's seen but recently, but some of the others are more distant faces, comrades he hasn't seen in years, a couple he doesn't even recognize. And yet all of them answered his call, when he sent word for aid. They aren't warriors, most of them, but they're here. He can ask no more.

The rounds of greetings go on for another minute, but the smell of some kind of roasted meat is distracting, and his stomach sets to growling. He hasn't had more than a few crusts of waybread over the last two days, riding hard as he was from Ered Luin, and the sight of empty dishes stacked on the sideboard taunts him. He must have been even more lost than he thought, to be so late. Perhaps too late for-

"Alright, _enough,_ " comes the unexpectedly loud interjection from his right. Miss Baggins elbows her way back through the crowd until she stands before him once more, glaring impartially around. "Have you no sense at all? Honestly. I can hear his stomach grumbling from here, and the lot of you crowd him till he can barely breathe."

Everyone pauses, eyeing him uncertainty. Except Dwalin, of course, who merely looks down his oft-broken nose, lips twitching with amusement.

Thorin folds his arms over his chest and tries not to feel defensive. "Aye, I suppose I could eat."

"Well, if you _suppose_." The quarrelsome creature points at a doorway on her left, surely the source of the appetizing smell. "The kitchen is thataway, Master Oakenshield, and I'll be along shortly with your supper. Now, _you lot-_ " and she rounds on the company, who draw back from her pointing finger like it's a loaded charge. Even Dwalin, though he immediately looks sore about it. "I've had quite enough trouble from you, so you'll sit there at the table and _behave yourselves_ until I return."

Thorin smirks over her shoulder at Dwalin, and makes his escape before she can turn her temper on him once more.

She pads in after him a moment later and shoos him to the table, so he cautiously takes a seat at the only place not covered by dishes, watching her fuss with a large pot on the stove. It's a homey room, painted a cheery yellow with a number of fine little watercolors scattered haphazardly about the walls. A pair of wide glassed windows stand open above the sink, letting in a warm summer breeze that smells pleasantly of green and growing things. A fire gnaws hungrily at a small pile of logs in the huge brick fireplace, and next to it stands a pantry—or what had presumably been a pantry, before being picked entirely clean by a horde of hungry dwarrows.

At the sight, Thorin feels a small pang beneath his breastbone that might, if he were forced to put word to it, qualify as _guilt._

"Need I apologize for the ill manners of my company?"

She pauses for the slightest of moments, then resumes her careful ladling of something from pot to bowl. "You haven't apologized for your own just yet," she says, voice rich with amusement, and he feels a flush burn across his cheeks. "But it's well enough, Master Oakenshield. I promised Gandalf I'd have the feeding of you, and I'm good for my word. I've had worse evenings."

It's not exactly a rousing endorsement, but Thorin feels a little of the tension strung tight around his shoulders slide away nonetheless. He's had enough of arguing, these last few days—arguing without cease or purpose, and naught to show for it, at the end. It'd be nice to make peace with someone for a change, even a crosspatch hobbit who's clearly far too fond of getting her own way.

After all, she _is_ feeding him.

She brings his supper to the table, a large bowl of some sort of hearty stew with thick crusts of dark bread perched on the rim. A mug of ale slaps down on the table beside it moments later, and he can only roll his eyes wordlessly at her in gratitude, too busy stuffing his face to speak. She gives him a hint of a smile, he thinks, before padding out of the room and leaving him to it.

If he hears the volume of the next room drop abruptly the moment she enters it, well, that's no concern of his.

When he surfaces once more a few minutes later, his belly full for the first time in days, it's to see her leaning against the wall, watching him and puffing on a fine little briarwood pipe. He wonders what she's thinking, and wonders still more what qualities in her Gandalf finds so necessary for their quest. He can't deny that she's quiet—he didn't hear her come up behind him until she struck a match to light her pipe, and he pays more attention to his surroundings than most—but so are many people when they're barefoot, as she is within the walls of her own home. What of outside, when she's wearing sturdy travelling boots like the rest of them? As well, quiet movement is not the only requirement for a good burglar, and even less so when said burglar needs to travel half a world away to make her theft. If nothing else, she'll be a liability on the road, when Thorin can ill-afford such luxuries.

She raises one tawny eyebrow at him, and he curses inwardly when he realizes he's been caught staring far too long. "Feeling better?"

"I thank you for the supper," he says obliquely, unwilling to admit any to any weakness before. "You're a fine cook."

"Ah, I'm poor enough by Shire standards. I always was better in the garden than the kitchen."

"Then your people must be very fine cooks indeed, Miss Baggins," he says. "Where should I leave the bowl?" He itches to get back to the rest of the company and share his news, but neither will he lower himself to poor manners, not after her earlier display.

That twitch at the corner of her mouth was nearly a laugh, he's sure of it. "It's Bree. And you should ask your friends. Very handy with the clean-up, as it turns out."

Something about the set of her shoulders tells a story that he doesn't think he wants to know, so instead he asks, "What's Bree?"

She blinks for a moment, and this time the laughter wins out. She has a surprisingly deep chuckle for her small frame, one of those carelessly infectious belly laughs. "I am, Master Oakenshield. It's my name."

Thorin frowns, trying to remember. "Gandalf called you-"

"Bryony, aye." It sounds different on her tongue than it had on Gandalf's: _bree-uh-nee_ rather than the wizard's _brigh-oh-nee._ "Bree is my nickname."

"Nick-name?"

"Do dwarves not have those?" She shakes her head, as if she can't imagine such a thing. "I've heard Men call them short-names, or sweet-names. Usually used between friends."

"Strange of you to offer the use of it to me, then," Thorin says dryly, pushing away from the table. "All things considered."

She grins sharply at him as she snatches the bowl from between his hands. "True enough, laddie. But admiration of a woman's cooking will take you far in life." She turns to the sink. "Go on, now, I shan't keep you longer. I'm sure your friends are eager to hear your news."

He pauses, feeling like a trap yaws open before him but not quite able to identify the shape of it. Is she trying to be rid of him, or fishing for an invitation? She'll need to hear it sooner or later, but perhaps there's some obscure hobbitish tradition he's mangling, all-unknowing.

"I would have you hear it as well, mistress," he says cautiously.

She pauses at the sink, her back still to him. "Would you? Well, Gandalf did promise me stories in return for supper." She fills the bowl with some water and then leaves it to sit, turning around at last. Her face is carefully neutral, and he wonders, again, what she's thinking. "Let's go, then, Mister Oakenshield. I look forward to your tales."

"I fear they are grim ones, but I would that you would hear them all the same." He thinks he hears her mutter something behind his back—but in truth, he's a touch afraid to inquire too closely, lest he be subjected to another insult he'll have to ignore.

He pauses at the head of the the table, where a chair has clearly been left open for him. It'd be rude for him to remain afoot with all the rest of the Company seated, but neither can be bring himself to take the seat when their host remains standing. Seeing his moment of hesitation, Dwalin snorts into his beard and solves the issue by kicking the chair to Thorin's right. Kili jerks upright, glares at Dwalin, then looks to Thorin's face and takes himself briskly to the other end of the table to wedge himself in next to Fili.

Miss Baggins slides into the recently vacated seat, pipe firmly clamped between her teeth and something not unlike a smile flirting around the corners of her mouth. "Much obliged, I'm sure."

Thorin clears his throat. "Everyone," he says, and the table falls silent. "I bring news from the seven kingdoms. Listen close, and I will tell you what we must do."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thorin watches her, through the talk of dragons and Erebor; he can't not. If she is to be their burglar—and he has made no such determination!—he needs to know that she'll be invested in their quest. She has a comfortable life here in the Shire, with her fine little home and her soft merchant's hands, and hobbits aren't known for their love of gold. Payment won't draw and keep her, but passion might, if she's the will will for it. She certainly has spirit, but spirit, but that's not enough to face down a dragon.

He knows _that_ better than most.

She's quiet enough during their talk—unusually quiet, he feels comfortable in saying, even on such short acquaintance—not offering more than the occasional word or question, even when the company gets overloud. Sterner creatures than halflings have quailed before a group of riled dwarves, but she simply sits there, listening intently, puffing fine little smoke-rings from her pipe. The smoke collects in the still air above her, catching the lantern-light until she seems crowned by a dark reddish glow, and her eyes seem very sorcerous and pale in the shadows.

For a time he thinks he sees her watching him back, a speculative gleam to her eye, and he wonders-

But then Gandalf pulls out the key that hung on a chain around his father's neck for as long as he could remember, and Thorin is quite thoroughly distracted.

"If there is a key, there must be a door," says Fili, who isn't close enough to read the map.

"These runes speak of a hidden passage to the lower halls," Gandalf answers—as if Thorin can't read his own tongue! "However, finding it is another matter. Dwarf doors are invisible when closed. The answer lies hidden somewhere in this map and I do not have the skill to find it. But!" he holds up a hand before anyone can interject. "There are others in Middle-earth who can. The task I have in mind will require a great deal of stealth, and no small amount of courage. But, if we are careful and clever, I believe that it can be done."

"So _that's_ why we need a burglar," Ori says, and the others all murmur agreement. Thorin, who knows the real reason, exchanges a private look with Gandalf. The Arkenstone still lays a world away, but this map puts the possibility of uniting his people into his hands.

"Hmm," Miss Baggins says, looking over his shoulder at the map. "A good one, too. An expert, I'd imagine."

Gloin slaps his hand to the table. "And are you?" She doesn't respond, tilting her head to see the map from a better angle, and Gloin clears his throat heartily. "Well, lass?"

"Am I what?" she says absently, and Óin laughs.

"She said she's an expert! Hey, hey!"

At that, she looks up and seems to notice all the eyes on her, and splutters in surprise. "Me? No, no, no, I'm no burglar, friends. I've never stolen a thing in my life."

"You stole a fair number of lemon-drop candies, if I recall," Gandalf corrects. "Right out of my pocket."

She glares up at him. "I was _five._ "

"I'm afraid I have to side with Miss Baggins, here," Balin interjects, before the wizard can further pick an argument with their host. "She's a fine hostess, but she's hardly burglar material."

"See? Someone agrees with me."

"Aye, the wild is no place for gentlefolk," Dwalin chimes in. "Especially not for a lass who can neither fight nor defend herself."

"I'd say her tongue's sharp enough to cut any foe," Óin rumbles, in what he probably think is a whisper. Thorin winces as Miss Baggin's brows raise towards her hairline.

"Better a sharp tongue than a dull wit."

_Everyone_ cringes now, for Óin is an older fellow, set in his ways, and not inclined to listen to backtalk. But Óin just peers at his ear trumpet and shakes it. "Must still have ale in it," he mutters. "What was that, lass?"

She takes a deep breath. "I _said-_ "

"ENOUGH!" roars Gandalf, neatly cutting across the brewing argument. "If I say Bryony Baggins is a burglar, then a burglar she is. I have already spoken of my reasons for this choice, and those reasons still stand. You must trust me on this."

"Excuse me-" Miss Baggins says, but Thorin does not wish to fight him on this any longer. She seems an unlikely choice at best, but he cannot afford to offend a wizard. Not with so many hazards still ahead of them.

"Very well," he says heavily. "We'll do it your way. Give her the contract."

" _Excuse me,_ " Miss Baggins says, but Bofur bounds out of his chair and is stuffing a scroll in her hand before she can say anything further.

"Alright, we're off!" says Bofur, who quite enjoys contractual work. It's made him a fine merchant, away in Ered Luin. "It's just the usual summary of out-of-pocket expenses, time required, remuneration, funeral arrangements, and so forth."

"Funeral arrangements?" says Miss Baggins, faintly.

"Oh aye," Bofur says, and continues his excited summation of the contract. Thorin, meanwhile, leans towards Gandalf, his eyes caught by Miss Baggin's uncalloused hands.

"I cannot guarantee her safety," he says lowly, so that her ridiculous hobbity ears can't catch him. "Nor will I be responsible for her fate."

"Understood, Master Oakenshield," Gandalf says, looking contemplatively at Miss Baggins, who is now leaning backwards from Bofur's enthusiastic recitation. "Though I think she will surprise us all, that hobbit."

"Perhaps."

"-shall not be liable for injuries inflicted by or sustained as a consequence thereof," Bofur reads, pointing to a bit of contract to Miss Baggins. "Including but not limited to lacerations, evisceration, incineration-"

"Excuse me, incineration?" Miss Baggins finally manages to interject. "Don't you think this is all a little-"

"Oh aye, incineration," Bofur nods. "He'll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye. Think furnace with wings!"

"-a little presumptuous?" Miss Baggins manages to cut in, and Bofur falls silent. She casts a burning gaze across all of them. "Not a single one you thought to ask me if I was actually willing to join this mad quest of yours?"

They all fall quiet, and Thorin's heart sinks. Gandalf had written that he'd found a burglar, he thinks, abruptly furious, but neglected to mention that he'd not yet gotten her to _agree._ Here he's been talking down her potential as a comrade, and all along she had no intention of joining them! Quite a fool he's made of himself, and aided along the way by wizard and hobbit alike.

Kili takes a breath, loud in the sudden silence, and then dives in, foolhardy lad that he is. "So are you?" he asks. "Willing to join us?"

She looks over all of them, but her gaze comes back to Thorin and it's his gaze she holds when she shakes her head regretfully. "No," she says, and the disappointed exhale of twelve dwarves is loud indeed. "Gandalf shouldn't have misled you. I'm sorry, truly I am, but the lot of you are right: I'm no burglar. And neither am I the sort to go on adventures, no matter how grand or noble." She shakes her head. "You've the wrong hobbit for the job, gentlemen. You shall have to seek your burglar elsewhere."

She turns and leaves before they can reply, and Thorin listens to the absence of sound where footsteps should be down the hall with a sinking heart. "That's that, then," he says finally.

Gandalf only shakes his head, looking as frustrated as he usually made others feel. "No, not just yet," he says. "She's changed since I saw her last, but I can't believe she's changed that much. I'll speak to her, see if I can't change her mind."

"Doubt it," Fili mutters, not as quietly as he thought, but Thorin privately agrees. Miss Baggins had a determined set to her chin that puts him in mind of his sister, who has a will that Mahal himself must have carved from solid stone. Miss Baggins will not be easily swayed from her course.

"By all means, Master Wizard," Thorin says instead, and nods to the doorway. "Convince away."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gandalf doesn't go after her immediately, instead taking himself outside to smoke his pipe and stare at the stars. Thorin can see him through the window, but focuses instead on talking with his comrades, finalizing the last of the plans. If Gandalf fails in his attempts to convince their host, as they fully expect he will, they'll have to detour back to Ered Luin, to try to send word to one of Nori's more unsavory contacts. Thorin dreads the idea of taking a wanted criminal on their quest, but they have dire need of a burglar, and to travel with thirteen would be too unlucky to bear. _That's the problem with thieving for a good cause,_ he tells himself, not for the first time. _No thief talented enough to succeed would be honorable enough to uphold the terms of the agreement._ Gandalf had proposed a solution to the dilemma, but his plan is quite obviously not going to work out.

They finally fall to telling stories of Erebor by the time the wizard comes back inside. Thorin can't bring himself to contribute to the old tales, not tonight of all nights, and instead he finds himself walking as quietly as his boots will allow down the hall to take up a post near the sitting-room where Miss Baggins retreated. He's not the only one, he thinks, sharing an amused glance with Balin, but they both light their pipes and wait.

At first their words are quiet, no matter how Thorin strains vainly to overhear, but eventually Gandalf says something that sets off Miss Baggins' formidable temper because he hears her say, quite loudly, "You could have told them that I'd already refused, instead of letting me make a fool of myself in front of guests!"

_At least she's not any happier about that trick than I am,_ Thorin thinks. It's a small comfort, but it eases his mind a little to know that for all their mutual rudeness, at least she wasn't laughing at him behind his back.

"I thought perhaps you'd change your mind!" Gandalf snaps back, forgetting himself as well and speaking loudly enough to be overheard. "It's not like you to turn down a chance to see the world, Bryony Baggins who is her mother's daughter!"

"You of all people should know by now, _Gandalf the Gray_ , that people are never so simple as that. Am I to be nothing but bits and pieces of my parents?"

"Certainly not, but neither are you quite like your neighbors, nor have you ever been. You were never meant for such things as other girls of the Shire."

From Miss Baggins there is a shocked intake of breath that Thorin has heard from many a man with a blade between their ribs. "The things you say to me," she says, lowly, such that he has to strain to hear. "You haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

"I know you used to wander the countryside, sometimes for days at a time! Your mother wrote to me, you know. She used to laugh over your adventures—you were forever getting yourself into one tangle or another, she said, and she could never keep you inside. And then when you were a young woman grown-"

"I got worse," Miss Baggins says heavily. "Yes. But that was many years ago. I haven't roamed in years, not since I became-"

"Eccentric, I know, you told me." Thorin casts a look at Balin, who shrugs. A strange hobbit-term, then, the meaning of which they do not know. "Why did you stop your adventures, truly? Not just grief for your father's passing, I don't think."

"It could have been," she says, but sighs before Gandalf can reply. "Because I didn't find what I was looking for out there, Gandalf. I've wandered farther than most that aren't called Took, and you know what I discovered?"

"I'm quite sure you're about to tell me!"

"That there's no path far enough to carry me to somewhere I can make my mark on the world."

Gandalf's voice softens, and against his pride and better judgement, Thorin risks discovery to lean closer to the open doorway. "What sort of mark did you wish to make, my dear?"

"Oh, I thought- a farm, perhaps," Miss Baggins, and her voice carries a hint of longing, the same as any dwarrow who feels the call to the mines. "I always had such a green thumb… Though it would have been such a scandal—a Baggins of Bag-End, a farmer! But then father passed, and mother wasn't in a fit state to manage the family fortunes so they fell to me, and I learned that they were long ago sunk in this land, right here beneath our feet. This is my home, created by my father with love. Here there are gardens, full of good food and fine flowers, and with those I am content."

"Is contentment all you require out of life, Bryony Baggins?" Gandalf asks heatedly. "Think of the opportunity before you! You say you wanted to make your mark on the world, well, here's your chance! You could help rebuild a kingdom, surely more than any other farmer could claim, and have enough gold to purchase whatever manner of land you pleased."

"Hobbits have no place in the cultivation of crowns," Miss Baggins said, gently but firmly. "And neither do I. It's a great deal of treasure your dwarves offer, certainly, enough to buy a hundred such farms as I once dreamed of. And none of it matters a farthing against the home where my parents dug into the earth. I'm sorry, Gandalf. But I spoke truly, before. You have the wrong hobbit."

Thorin leans back against the wall and does his best to look like he wasn't eavesdropping as Miss Baggins gets up and pads out of the doorway. His efforts are wasted, however, because she doesn't even seem to see him, just shuffles off slowly down the hallway, a sad figure much diminished from her earlier fierceness.

He can't even blame her for refusing them, not truly. He has no choice in this quest, but every dwarf in this home that follows him across the Misty Mountains does so out of greater loyalty than sense, and Thorin knows it well. He goes east to reunite his people, to reclaim the home his ancestors built, but he can't blame Miss Baggins for staying here, in the home _her_ family made. Her words cling too heavily to his own grief, and his belly is raw with it.

Balin clears his throat. "Well," he says. "It appears we've lost our burglar. Probably for the best, really. This was always a foolish plan."

"Not so foolish," Thorin says softly, and Balin gives him a pained smile.

"Nay, lad, not so foolish at all." He stands and stretches. "I'm going to go rejoin the others, have a last smoke and sing the old songs. Will you join us?"

"Aye, I'll be there shortly," he says, and Balin nods before following the hobbit down the hallway. Thorin will follow in a moment, but for right now he just closes his eyes, and thinks of a home he might not yet live to see.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Once or twice, through the evening, he thinks he sees a wavering shadow in the doorway, slight enough that it could only belong to their host. But whenever he looks, it's always naught but smoke and firelight, and never a halfling listening to their songs.

He tells himself he's not disappointed.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

By unspoken agreement, they are all quiet as they rise and pack the next morning. Their high spirits the evening before were appropriate for a prospective member of their company, but in light of her refusal, it seems wrong to all of them to disturb her further. Kili makes noises about waking her, just to say goodbye, but Fili shakes his head no before Kili can even finish the suggestion. "Let her have her rest," he says, and they can't do anything but agree.

It's quite early as they make their way to the stables, dawn just barely cresting over the hilltops, and the grass still covered in dew. The town is also empty, almost all of its inhabitants still abed. The ostler grunts and nods when they come rustling in, and accepts Thorin's tossed coin in payment without budging from his comfortable perch. Saddling fourteen ponies and loading two pack-mules takes longer than it should, but Thorin knows a number of the lads are still a tad hungover from the good meal and copious ale the evening before. Gandalf takes longer tacking up his own horse than one might expect from such a seasoned traveller, and Thorin would almost suspect him of dragging his heels for some reason, save for the fact that he is still the first of them mounted, and leads the procession out of the stables and onward towards the road.

It's a pleasant enough ride, and none of them are in a hurry, following Gandalf's ambled pace along the curving roads of the Shire. In daylight Thorin finds he can't feel too badly about getting lost the night before, because Hobbiton is a rabbit warren of small roads that begin suddenly and don't seem to go much of anywhere. Gandalf seems to know where he's going, but even Dwalin looks a little baffled by the twists and turns.

"How did you get there first, then?" Thorin asks him. Dwalin shrugs.

"Went through a couple backyards."

Balin's sharp ears catch his brother's muttered comment, and he turns and pins him with a beetle-browed stare that he used to terrorize both of them when they were failing at their lessons. "From what Miss Baggins said at dinner, hobbits prize their gardens almost as much as we prize smithcraft."

"So?"

"So, you just trampled through them, without so much as a by-your-leave?"

"I didn't crush anything!" Dwalin protests. "I didn't step on anything that had flowers, or was in rows. I know what a damn garden is!"

"Even so, you still went through someone's home," Balin sighs. "What did you do, jump the fences?"

"And what of it?" Dwalin huffs. "It's not my fault their roads don't make sense."

"What that means, dear brother mine, is that you probably scared them half to death," Balin says with asperity. "And that their Thain is probably composing a strongly-worded letter to Thorin, here, as we speak."

"Eh, well, lad, just means it's good we're off to Erebor!" Dwalin crows. "Less of that diplomatic froo-fraw to contend with, more honest steel."

"I wouldn't be too happy if I were you," Thorin says dryly. "It just means that my sister is the one who'll get the letter."

Dwalin visibly shrinks down on his pony, then shakes his head. "Nay, the Lady Dís doesn't have much of a care for the fussing of halflings. She'll likely find it funny."

"And you know so much about what my sister finds amusing, do you?"

"Aye, because she's good for a laugh, unlike Your Madge." Dwalin snorts and ducks Thorin's half-hearted cuff. "It's not like you care overmuch for the fussings of halflings yourself."

Thorin sighs. "They are a simple people, who care overmuch for comforts. We should never have bothered them in the first place."

"And why did we?" Dwalin asks. "Why waste our time on one halfling who isn't even a burglar?"

"Because I said so, Master Dwalin," Gandalf calls from the from of the line. Several ponies separate them, but Gandalf, much like Balin, has ears like a bat. "And I wouldn't count Miss Baggins out just yet. She could still join us."

"Aye, how's that exactly?" Gloin called up. "Here we are, riding out the Shire, and I see no burglar with us. Unless one of you has her in your pockets?"

Raucous laughter echoes through the company. Up ahead, Gandalf twists around in the saddle to shakes his head at them. "You'd be wise not to underestimate hobbits, and _that_ hobbit in particular. Five to one says that she'll be with us before lunch today."

"I'll take that bet!" Dwalin calls, and then Nori says, "Aye, me too!" and after that, the betting goes fast and furious. Thorin shakes his head and stays out of it, as does Balin, but he notices that Oín is the only one to share Gandalf's faith in the hobbit. The irascible old bastard always did have a soft spot for lost causes, though.

The company spends a very pleasant hour sending insults back and forth along the line, and Thorin smiles but stays well out of it. He can play that game with Dwalin, or Balin, if he's a mind to, because they've known him long enough, but to the others he's a prince, and any insult from his lips is no game. Even with the sons of Fundin, he must be careful to keep it away from the ears of the others, because his rudeness could easily become mirrored. Dwalin is one of the greatest fighters of their people, and Balin a clever statesman, well known as a fine warrior in his youth. Save for Gandalf or perhaps Thorin himself, they are the most capable members of their company. He won't stand for any disrespect.

His stomach growls, making its displeasure known at Thorin's lack of breakfast, and he calls out, "Lunch at the next stop!"

"Hah!" Nori cries. "Where's your hobbit now, Master Óin?"

"No good, can't hear you," Óin says, despite the fact that he has his ear trumpet in to converse with his brother. They all roll their eyes.

But perhaps the old sawbones knows something they don't, for a few minutes later they hear a crashing sound from some brush off to the right. All of them put hand to their weapons, but who should appear from the hedge but Mistress Baggins herself, carrying a travelling-pack and a walking stick and running with surprisingly long strides. Her impressive mass of hair is neatly bound up behind her in a single serviceable braid, bouncing behind her as she runs, and a faded green travelling-cloak flaps out behind her like a flag from where it's been shoved haphazardly into the top of her pack.

"Wait!" she called. "Wait, I have the contract!"

"Blast and damnation," Nori grumbles, and spurs his pony forward. Thorin and Balin, however, slow to a halt and allow her to catch up to them, panting.

"I have the contract," she says again, flourishing the parchment in her free hand. With the other she leans on the walking stick, looking a bit winded. "I signed it already."

Balin gives Thorin a triumphant look—he hadn't bet for the hobbit, but he'd declined to bet against her, either—and unrolls it. "Everything seems to be in order," he says. "Welcome, Mistress Baggins, to the company of Thorin Oakenshield."

"Pleased to be- ulp!" Her pretty manners are cut short with a yelp of startlement when Bombur, who was leading their spare pony, rides by and hoists her into the other saddle without a word of warning. "Uh, much obliged, I'm sure!" she calls at Bombur's back, and glares down at the reins across Myrtle's withers as if they personally offend her.

"Not done much riding?" Thorin offers, as he nudges Minty back into line with the others. Myrtle follows suit without much prompting from Miss Baggins, who smiles grimly at him before twisting around to stow her pack and walking-stick behind Myrtle's saddle with deft but unpracticed fingers.

"Hobbits are better suited to being on the ground," she says. "I've done a great deal of walking, but riding, only very little."

She can't have been much of a traveller, then, whatever Gandalf claims, and Thorin merely shakes his head and rides forward. Behind him, he hears Bofur say cheerfully, "Ah, you'll get the hang of it in no time, lass. As much as we'll be in the saddle, you'll feel as if you're born to it!"

"That sounds… delightful," Miss Baggins says dryly, and Thorin pulls abreast to Gandalf.

"So it seems we have our burglar after all," he mutters to the wizard. "Mahal help us."

"She'll make herself useful soon enough, you'll see," Gandalf says cheerfully. "Hobbits are hardy folk, and adapt well to whatever you throw at them."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Thorin says, and drops back again to ride with Dwalin. "Apparently she doesn't know how to ride, either."

"Well, we'll have plenty of time to teach her," Dwalin says, with unusual optimism. When Thorin casts a raised brow in his direction, his old friend just grins. "She's got enough spirit to chase us halfway across the Shire on foot just to join us. She's probably useless, but at least you can't say she doesn't want to be here. And she's a fourteenth. We can't afford to turn up our nose at a luckbearer like that."

"I suppose not," Thorin admits. Fourteen, a good solid number, even luckier than seven. He doesn't want to waste weeks travelling back to Ered Luin if he can help it, and Dwalin's right, she did volunteer. None can say that she didn't know what she was getting herself into. "It's still a bad idea."

"Lad, we don't have any other kind," Dwalin laughs, and pulls out his pipe. Thorin pulls out of line to drop to the back, wincing at Miss Baggin's awkward posture as she passes. She catches it, somehow, and glares back at him before pointedly turning back to whatever silliness she's discussing with Bofur, her small figure radiating annoyance.

Thorin sighs. It's going to be a long trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Bryony" is a very old-fashioned English name that comes from a variety of flowering vine that grows wild as far north as Yorkshire. Much like belladonna, bryony can be used in herbal medicine, but is generally high toxic if ingested. It seemed appropriate. Gandalf's pronunciation (brigh-oh-nee) is the correct one, but I always thought hobbits would say certain things rather more casually, and thus "Bree" was born.


	2. Chapter 2

Miss Baggins adjusts with ill grace to riding, but to Thorin's private surprise, she doesn't lower herself to complain. Her wincing stretch when they stop for a quick lunch an hour into her ride betrays her misery, but she keeps quiet enough. She still needs a boost from Bifur to make it onto Myrtle's back when they set off, but as Dwalin pointed out, they do have many weeks of road ahead of them. Thorin supposes she'll learn.

Thorin calls a halt as the light starts to fall low, and they set up camp in a small clearing off the main road that has obviously been used by many such travellers, judging by the well-tended fire pit. They're still in the Shire, though just barely, riding along the East-West road towards Bree. Thorin doesn't intend to stop there. They're well-supplied enough, just starting out as they are, and he hasn't forgotten the price on his head. Better to stay away from towns, at least until their packs run low.

They all busy themselves with setting up camp, tying the ponies and readying the fire. They haven't all ridden together before, but all his kind are used to travel, and it's easy to fall into the old rhythms. It's only when supper is finished and Bombur is dishing out stew that they realize they're a member short.

Everyone starts fussing, of course, and the pandemonium of a dozen worried dwarves sets Thorin's head to aching. _Damn and bedevil the blasted hobbit,_ he thinks. It's been only a day, and already she seems more trouble than she could possibly be worth.

Dwalin cuts through the noise, finally, with a roared, "Enough!" The others fall silent. Few of them are eager to face Dwalin in a temper, and with good reason.

Thorin pinches the bridge of his nose. "Thank you, Dwalin," he says dryly. "Now. Who saw Miss Baggins last?"

They all look at each other. "She brought Myrtle over with the others," Fili says slowly.

"And her pack is still here!" Kili chimes in. "Only her bedroll is missing. She put her mess kit out with the others."

Ori raises his hand tentatively, and Thorin wants to hang his head in despair. Maker save him from squeaking merchant's sons, he thinks uncharitably. "Yes, lad, what is it?"

"I think I saw her go off into the woods that way," Ori says, and points. "She had her bedroll with her."

"Now why would the lass do a thing like that?" Bofur asks, baffled. "Doesn't she know there could be wolves about?"

Thorin privately doubts that there are any such predators among the rolling hills of the Shire, but they're headed into woodlands, and some could have found their way, he supposes. Regardless, he doesn't want to let the hobbit think that it's a good idea to go off on her own, so he just stands up and waves Dwalin back when his friend makes to follow him.

"I'll retrieve the burglar," he says, "and make sure she doesn't go wandering in the future." And then, with a longing look at Bombur's fine stew, he adds, "Don't wait supper on my account. I'll be back soon."

He doesn't have to search very far, as it turns out. He's scarcely a hundred paces down the path when a voice from above him says, "You'd think a hardened warrior such as yourself would have learned by now to look up."

He startles, probably much more obviously than he'd like to admit, and looks up to see Miss Baggins halfway up a damn tree. She's perched in the crook of two branches, near the trunk, her dark coat and trousers near to blending in with the bark and her bare feet dangling downwards. She folds her elbows across her knees, looking amused.

Bare feet, he thinks, incongruously. He noticed that she wore no shoes in her home the night before, but somehow he hadn't noticed her lack of footwear on the road today. The tops of her feet are covered in thick, curly hair that would do any dwarf proud in a beard, and the sides and bottoms are horned with thick callous at home on a smelter's hands. They are surely the strangest feet of any he's ever seen, and _why isn't she wearing any shoes?_

He also can't find any other branches lower to the ground she could have used to boost herself up. "How did you even get _up_ there?" he demands, without thinking.

She simply smirks. "Why big folk cripple themselves with giant clodhopper boots such as you do, I'll never understand," she says, and wiggles her furry toes. "I climbed, Mister Oakenshield, and you would likely be able to do if your kind had more sensible feet. There's plenty of holds in the bark."

"Going barefoot out in the wilds is _not sensible,_ " he says. He feels like he's stuck on a waterwheel, his mind going in circles and refusing to get off, but truly: _bare feet._ "What if you cut your foot on a rock? Or what shall you do when the weather turns?"

She gives him a scornful look. "Huh, imagine tough folk like you, brought low by something as silly as that," she says. "And _cold weather_? Is that why you all wear so many ridiculous layers?"

Thorin has the sinking feeling that the argument is getting away from him. "What are you even doing up there?" he says instead. Better to redirect this ridiculous conversation before it goes even further off the rails. "You just disappeared when we were setting up camp."

"You lot had it well in hand," she says airily. "I'd only get in the way. So I nipped off to find a good tree. I heard you making a great deal of noise and thought dinner might be finished, so I was about to come back."

Thorin does not pinch the bridge of his nose again, but only because he doesn't want to give her the satisfaction. "That noise was worry over your absence, Miss Baggins," he says. "Nobody knew where you went."

"Oh, honestly, of all the things to worry over," she says. "I was just getting my bedroll situated. Nothing more frustrating than trying to find the right tree when the light's gone, and you're ready for sleep."

"Find the-" Thorin stops, and looks up at her again. She has her bedroll next to her, and he has a sudden, horrifying thought. "Miss Baggins. Were you planning to sleep in the tree?"

She blinks down at him. "Well, yes. I thought it odd you weren't doing the same, but perhaps dwarves aren't comfortable being so far from the earth?"

They aren't, as a rule. Thorin has no problem with heights, but that's generally with solid stone beneath his feet. That's not the point, however, and he says, "We sleep as a group, on the ground, where we can defend ourselves if attacked. It's not a matter of comfort, it's a matter of practicality. Why in blazes would you sleep in a tree?"

"So as not to get attacked in the first place?" she says, a questioning lilt at the end of her voice. "It's how I always slept while travelling, as long as there's suitable trees about. Creatures can't climb so high, and big folk never look up."

He finally begins to understand. Hobbits are notoriously shy of other races, aside from the towns that border their Shire directly, and even so few but traders and craftsmen ever venture that far. It makes a twisted sort of sense, for such small, soft creatures travelling alone, to sequester themselves up in the tree branches where they won't be bothered when they're asleep and (even moreso than usually) defenseless. It's fairly ingenious, actually, which Thorin doesn't plan to say aloud because all things considered, he still needs to get her out of the tree before one of the others comes looking and finds him arguing with their burglar, still twenty feet in the air.

"Miss Baggins." He tries for a nice, reasonable tone, the better to coax her down, but judging from her arched brows, he's missed the mark a bit into frustration. "While your… foresight is appreciated, you are travelling with our company now, and it is our duty to protect our own to the best of our ability. Perhaps on your own this is sensible, but now you will be far safer on the ground, with us and our weapons readily at hand. We mount watches throughout the night. None will bother you."

"Well, that sounds terribly sensible of you," she says easily enough. He squints up at her, not sure that he trusts such easy capitulation from a difficult creature like her, but she slings her bedroll across the back of her neck and swings down off her branch. He winces as she seems to twist through empty air, but she catches hold of the bark as easily as she said and scales down in less than a minute. Her last little leap has her landing near-soundlessly on the packed earth of the path, and she grins up at him. "See? I told you."

"So you have some talents," he says. "Climbing trees does not a burglar make."

"I'm sure you know so much about the skill set."

He grits his teeth. "Let's just go back to the camp," he says low, and turns to suit action to word. He can't hear her following him, but when he glances over, she's right behind his elbow, looking pleased with herself.

Well. At least she does move quietly. Gandalf didn't lie about that much.

Bofur is the first to spot them returning, and a grin splits his face. "Lass!" he calls. "We thought a bear might've ate you!"

"Wouldn't take more than a bite," Dwalin rumbles, hopefully too low for Miss Baggins to hear. It doesn't take much guessing to figure out that she's likely not going to take well to comments about her size.

"Well, bears can't climb trees," Thorin says, and goes to get his supper, leaving Miss Baggins behind to explain why, exactly, she was in a tree. When he settles down with his bowl of Bombur's stew he looks up to see her surrounded by half their company, glaring at him over their heads.

He grins to himself, and focuses on his dinner. He _never_ gets the last word with his sister, and he's going to savor the victory over Miss Baggins while he has it. Especially since he has no doubt that she's going to make him pay for it later.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If she's planning vengeance, she doesn't seem eager to execute it. She lets their company fuss over her for some time before breaking free and getting dinner of her own, and he watches beneath his lashes as she fills her bowl and settles wincingly on a log. He remembers again how sore she must be after a day of riding, and can't help but be impressed that she climbed a tree like that. Perhaps Gandalf was right, and hobbits are sturdier than he was giving them credit for.

They all fall quietly to their after-dinner pastimes, not quite late enough for most of them to seek their beds. Bombur drops right off after finishing off the last of the stew, the lazy sod, but that's expected. Some of them check their weapons, or settle in with their instruments; Fili and Kili pull out their little flutes and entertain them with merry little tunes. It won't be too long before they can't afford to make that kind of noise at night, so Thorin doesn't begrudge them the music. And in truth, they're both quite good with a tune.

Miss Baggins set up her bedroll in the middle of the camp at the urging of the others, and she curls up there, a little away from their group still clustered around the fire, watching them from half-lidded eyes. Thorin, himself busy putting the edge back on some of Fili's countless daggers, finds his gaze straying to her more often than he likes to admit. She's a curious creature, their erstwhile burglar, and while he still believes that she has no business joining them on their journey, he has to admit that she's demonstrating hidden depths. Very shallow depths, perhaps, but something more than the petty comforts and narrow-mindedness her kind are known for. At least a couple members of the company seem quite attached to her already, perhaps because Ori is just enough into his adulthood that he won't let them fuss over him anymore. They seem to see her as a mascot, or a pet, which she tolerates with better grace than Thorin would have suspected. The woman who insulted his family in her front hall and ordered him into her kitchen for supper mere minutes later doesn't seem one to tolerate that kind of well-meaning condescension, but perhaps she's merely taking it in the spirit with which it's intended.

Or perhaps she will snap and set their ears scalding in a rage before too long. If he were a gambling sort, that's where he'd place his coin.

Miss Baggins catches him watching her, once, and gives him a sardonic smile which he returns in kind. She curls up a little more tightly after that, a tiny figure under her mottled brown blanket, and gives every evidence of falling asleep. Were it not for the firelight and the well-tended campsite, she would seem like nothing so much as a fallen log on the forest floor. Small wonder her kind are able to hide in tree branches. The wonder is that they're willing to venture from their homes at all.

Eventually the fire burns low, and Thorin calls a halt to the festivities. Dwalin takes his axes and goes to check the perimeter while the rest of them sort out the the other watches, and then seek their beds. Thorin finds himself staying awake for perhaps longer than is sensible with another hard ride on the morrow, stretched out on his back and looking at what he can see of the sky between the branches. He's spent so many long nights on the road, more than he could begin to count, that it's hard to believe that this is the first of many on the road back to Erebor. It won't be an easy journey, by any means, and at the end of it there is still a dragon to contend with, but if they can but retrieve the Arkenstone, he could unite their people once more. They could drive the dragon from their home, and rebuild Erebor to surpass its former glory, the golden jewel of the east. It will happen. He just has to have faith.

He falls asleep like that, staring at the silver light of the stars, and dreaming of the pale glow of the Arkenstone, pulled from the darkness at the heart of the mountain, and the vastness of the army that it could command.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Everyone's in high spirits the next morning, eager to get on the road. Bofur, who seems to be particularly taken by their burglar, takes a few minutes to help her tack up Myrtle, since she has to stand on tip-toe to even reach the pony's withers. Bombur boosts her into the saddle for expediency's sake, but as Thorin rides past her to take his place in line, he murmurs, "You're going to have to start practicing mounts when we stop for lunch."

"Oh good," she grumbles at him, and falls back to ride with Bofur and Bombur, as she had yesterday. Gandalf surrenders his place at the front of the line to join them, and Thorin finds himself unaccountably irritated by the laughter that drifts up from their little crowd. This is a _serious journey,_ not a summer holiday, and it's not place for-

He sighs and lets go of his anger, because even in his own head he sounds like a prig. Just because he's irritated by the hobbit-lass, with her smugness and sarcasm, is no reason for his bad mood to ruin her cause with the others. Truthfully, it can only be a good thing if she makes friends in the company, because it means she's less likely to abandon them on the road. Despite what Dwalin said about her enthusiasm, Thorin has his doubts. Everyone knows that hobbits are creatures who appreciate their comforts above all else, and an evening of her hospitality made it quite clear to him that her home was more comfortable than most. He still considers it fairly even odds that the distance of the travel, the rowdiness of their company and the discomforts of the road will send her homeward before they reach the Misty Mountains.

Thorin calls halt for lunch later into the afternoon, as the forest around them is thick and uninviting, without many easy places to stop. They do find a clearing eventually, however, and just as the grumblings from the party start to get loud. In particular Miss Baggins seems displeased about the lateness of the hour, but that could be as much her aching muscles as her grumbling stomach. Riding astride isn't kind on the body, if one isn't used to it.

It's a cold lunch of leftover sausages and travel bread, and Thorin doesn't want to let them linger too long with miles left to go this day, but he also doesn't want their burglar unable to mount her own pony in an emergency. He wolfs down his own meal as quickly as possible, and then crosses the clearing to stand over her with folded arms.

She's only halfway through her lunch, and as his shadow falls over her she looks up at him slowly, seeming almost betrayed. "But… now?" she says plaintively. "Surely you'll let me finish eating first?"

"You'll just have to finish on the road," he says mercilessly, and holds out his hand. "Up."

"You're a hard soul, Master Oakenshield," she informs him waspishly, and ignores his outstretched hand in favor of wrapping her remaining lunch in a bit of oilcloth and tucking it away in her pack. He lets his hand drop to his side and watches her climb to her feet without any aid from him, feeling a bit foolish about it. It doesn't help that the others are watching them—though from their smirks, most of them are too busy laughing at Miss Baggins and the impending show to be amused by his awkward, ill-thought gestures.

_She's just another member of your party,_ he tells himself, _which means that you treat her the same as you treat any of the others._ But it's hard to remember, when dealing with the woman who cut him down to size for the cost of one rude comment, that parlour-room manners have no place on the road.

Thinking about it makes him sharp with her as he tries to teach her how to mount, which goes… about as well as could be expected.

"It's going to come off," she says dubiously, staring at the saddle. "There's no way."

"It's _not_ going to come off," Thorin says, for the third time in as many minutes. "We just went through the process of checking the girth."

"But it _feels_ likes it's going to come off."

"This is ridiculous!" he says. "Look."

He puts his foot in the stirrup and swings into the saddle. The straps are set for her shorter legs, so he kicks his feet free and glares down at her. "I weigh at least twice what you do. The saddle is not coming off. You're just being a coward about it."

There are gasps from their audience at the severity of his insult, but Miss Baggins merely glares up at him with the usual amount of irritation. "I'd say a sense of caution when it comes to clambering about on an animal large enough to eat me for breakfast is only healthy!"

He swings his leg back over Myrtle's hindquarters and slides back to the ground. "You seem fine enough when you're already on ponyback. I don't understand why this is suddenly a terrible thing I'm asking you to learn."

She looks at him like she finds him mentally deficient. "I don't even come up to the pony's _shoulder,_ " she hisses back at him. "You don't see how maybe it's a little daunting?"

"It's not like my kind is much larger, hobbit," he snaps. "Somehow we manage."

Behind them, someone clears their throat, and Thorin whirls to see Balin standing there, suppressing a smile very badly. "We need to be moving out."

Thorin nods shortly and glares at Miss Baggins. "We're not done with this," he promises, and her eyes flash bloody murder at him.

"I could only be so lucky," she says coldly, and goes to fetch her pack. Thorin clenches his hands into fists at his sides and glares at her back, much to Balin's amusement.

"Perhaps one of the lads shoulder teach her," his old friend suggests tactfully. "They're a bit less…"

Thorin gives him a look.

"...abrasive," Balin finishes anyway. "Come now, lad, even you have to admit this isn't productive."

"Well, if she wasn't being such a bloody child about-"

"I heard that!" Miss Baggins snaps, returning with her pack. She manages to get it up on Myrtle's back and lashed behind the saddle, which Thorin has to reluctantly admire considering she has to strain on her tiptoes to do so. "Maybe you're just a terrible teacher, did you ever think of that?"

"You know what, it serves you right to have to learn from my nephew," Thorin says, and throws up his hands. "Kili!"

Across the clearing, Kili, already mounted, gives him a worried look. "Yes, Uncle?"

"You're going to be teaching the hobbit how to get her own arse in the saddle, since apparently she's too good to learn from me."

"...Yes, Uncle." He eyes the hobbit warily, but when Thorin turns around to look, Balin has already boosted her into the saddle, and she's giving his nephew a sweet smile.

"I'm sure you'll be a fine teacher, Kili," she calls, and Kili lights up.

"Traitor," Thorin mutters, though thankfully too low for anyone to hear, and goes to get himself into the saddle. Those two deserve each other.

When they call a halt for dinner, Kili and Miss Baggins spend twenty minutes in quiet consultation, and then lead Myrtle to a downed log and practice mounts from a height first. By the time dinner is served, she still looks like a bag of wet flour as she mounts, but she can get herself into the saddle.

Thorin scowls down at his plate and resolutely does not acknowledge the pair of them when they come grinning back to the fire, both of them taking congratulatory back-slaps as their due.

"See, I knew you'd be a fine teacher," Miss Baggins tells his nephew, who grins and gives her a pat on the shoulder heavy enough to rock her forward onto her toes.

"Well, you're a pretty good student," Kili says. Thorin grinds his teeth.

So that's the second day. All in all, it could have gone better.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The third day, the singing starts.

Kili lets Miss Baggins mount using the downed tree again, but at least she gets into the saddle, so Thorin doesn't have any grounds for complaint. He'd also look a churlish bastard if he tried, considering the way Miss Baggins is being congratulated by some members of their company, so he just nudges his horse up to the front of the line and does his best to ignore the group at the back, now including both his nephews. There's a lot of laughter that he also chooses to ignore, despite the way that Balin is shaking his head at him, and right about the time he wants to turn around and glare at them for their incredibly annoying good cheer when he's in the middle of a piss-poor mood, the lot of them grow quiet.

In retrospect, he should have found that suspicious, but really he's just happy not to have to hear them anymore. And for a while, he _doesn't_ hear anything from them. To their credit, they're trying to stay quiet, so as not to bother the rest of the group. But eventually Kili can't resist showing off, and Thorin hears the thin clear tones of his flute rise out above their murmurs. Thorin would turn around and scold, normally, but he recognizes the tune of the old travelling-song, a favorite of Frerin's that he picked up drinking with the Tinkers. Thorin can remember Dís singing it late into the night, when her fractious sons refused to go to bed, and the memory stills his tongue as Fili's clear baritone rises above his brother's piping.

         _See that crow up in the sky_  
         _He don't walk, well he just fly._  
         _He don't walk, well he don't run_  
         _Keep on flappin' to the sun._

"Oh, I haven't heard this one in years," Dori says nostalgically behind him, keeping his voice low. "Your boy has a fine voice, quite fine."

"Shh," Nori hisses.

         _When I go down to the shore_  
         _Got no wear upon my floor._  
         _You come along and follow me_  
         _We'll go down in history._  
         _Singin' green, green rocky road._  
         _You promenade in green_  
         _Tell me who you love, tell me who you love._

Fili trails the last note off, and everyone is startled by a sharp two-note whistle that splits the sudden silence. "A fine one, lad!" Dwalin calls. "Haven't heard you sing like that for some time. What brought that on?"

When Thorin twists around in the saddle, it's to see Fili blushing a little from the sudden attention, though his brother is grinning at him. "Bree was asking about dwarven songs, since she said she liked the one we sang in her home so much. I told her they weren't all so grim."

_She was listening?_ Thorin thinks, startled. And then, _she invited him to call her Bree?_

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. _A name for friends,_ she'd told him in her kitchen, and it's only to the good that she'd extend such an invitation to the others. If she can make friends among their number she's that much less likely to take off at the first opportunity, and whatever else can be said about himself and Miss Baggins, _friendly_ is not a word anyone would use to describe them.

"Ah, how about hobbit songs, then?" Dori calls back. "Don't tell me a people who keeps such a well-stocked wine cabinet don't sing a bit over their meals."

"Generally not over their meals, no, Mister Dori," Miss Baggins replies, grinning obnoxiously. "But over a few pints of ale, most certainly. Hobbits throw grand parties, you know."

"I can believe it!" Kili says, and they all laugh. "But come on, Bree, you can't make a statement like that and not back it up. Let's hear a hobbit song, then."

"Oh, yes!" Nori chimes in. "A hobbit song!"

"Oh, lord," Miss Baggins says, half-laughing, but she makes a show of picking the right tune, pressing her fingers to her lips and looking skyward in concentration. Thorin turns back around in his saddle, annoyed all over again at her playacting—and annoyed further still at his his own curiosity, to know what kind of thing she might choose for them.

"Alright, then," she says after a moment. "This was my mother's favorite, though it's been many long years since I've heard it. So you mustn't be too harsh if I get it wrong!"

"Enough dithering!" Dwalin orders, though he's hiding a smile in his beard when Thorin glances over. "Get on with it!"

"Well, if you insist," Miss Baggins says, a smile clear in her voice. She clears her throat and sings out in a surprisingly clear voice for such a little thing.

         _Blackberry bush in the middle of the meadow_  
         _Best to find some other fruit instead, oh!_  
         _The fruit may look sweet and invit-ing_  
         _But the brambles be sharp and bit-ing!_

         _You must consider the thorns, my lad_  
         _Consider the thorns_  
         _For the fruit may be sweet_  
         _But the thorns can't be beat_  
         _You must be careful, quick and clever_  
         _If those blades you are to sever!_  
         _So please, my lad, consider the thorns._

         _Bramble bush full of sweet juice-_

She cuts off abruptly, and clears her throat again. "On second thought, I think I shan't sing the rest of it," she says. "It's a little rude for mixed company."

There's a moment of respectful—and speculative—silence, broken by Kili's chortle. "And this was your mother's _favorite?_ She must've been something else altogether."

"She was at that," Miss Baggins sighs. "Legend goes that she sang that song on the eve of the Beltane Feast, the year she came of age—climbed up on the table and danced quite a respectable jig right in front of her father and all seven of her siblings and my father, besides. I'm told he didn't stop blushing for nearly a week after."

"Aye, she sounds a right proper firecracker," rumbles Gloin approvingly, whose own lady wife is famous throughout the Blue Mountains for her ability to out-drink all comers and ask for more besides. "And what about you, burglar? Any such tales of your own?"

"None so scandalous as all that," Miss Baggins replies. Thorin can hear the grin in her voice, but stubbornly refuses to turn and look, though he finds himself wondering if she's blushing. "Though I _may_ have let a few clever lads past my thorns, back in the day. Hobbits enjoy the courting as much as the wedding, generally."

"What kind doesn't?" Bofur says. "And well I can believe it, as you're a beauty still. Even without a beard."

"Well, not all of us can be so admirably coiffed as yourself, Master Bofur," Miss Baggins teases. "Although to my eye your brother has left us all in the dust."

"Don't I know it," Bofur says mournfully. "Left in the shade, I am, always have been."

If Miss Baggins makes another teasing reply, Thorin misses it, catching instead young Ori murmuring to his brother, "I don't get it. What's the song about, if not berries?"

"Oh, Ori," Nori sighs, and Thorin conceals a snort of laughter into his beard.

"Sometimes I wonder about that one," Dwalin rumbles from his side. "I know he's of age, because I checked three times, but still."

Thorin shrugs helplessly. "He's a fine hunter, at least," he said. "Has a dead eye with that slingshot."

"I'm sure his pebbles will do fine work against a dragon," Dwalin says, but thankfully falls silent after. Thorin would hate for his doubts to be heard by the boy himself. He knew when he made the call that he wouldn't have a company full of warriors. Ori is enthusiastic, he has to give the lad that.

A few minutes later, Bofur strikes up an old favorite in his deep baritone, and Kili and Fili join in immediately, Bombur drumming merrily along on his stew-pot. After the first few lines, Thorin hears Miss Baggins laugh and exclaim, "I didn't know this one made it as far as the Blue Mountains!"

"I didn't know it made it as far as the Shire!" Bofur pauses to retort, and the group of them fall about to laughter. "Well, come on then! If you know it, sing out!"

"I think I'll do just that!" Miss Baggins shoots back, and a moment later belts out the first lines again, the lads scrambling a word or two behind to catch up.

         _As I was goin' over the far famed Misty Mountains_  
         _I met with Captain Farrell and his money he was counting._  
         _I first produced me dagger and I then produced me rapier,_  
         _I said, “Stand and deliver, for you are the bold deceiver!”_

Even Thorin isn't such a grump today that he can resist the melody. The laughing and teasing of the company relaxes his foul mood, and when Dwalin lends his rusty croak to the tune a few lines later, Thorin gives in and sings out, if only to drown out his friend's voice. They ride on like that, all of them singing, and the journey doesn't seem so long.

So that's the third day. Not so bad, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hobbits sleeping in trees when they travel is my self-indulgent headcanon, which I considered writing out of this but honestly I loved the image of Thorin and Bree arguing with her halfway up a tree too much to let it go. Plus, it makes it more depressing when she later develops a fear of heights after being dangled off the battlements. I'm all about twisting that knife!
> 
> Fili's song is an (edited) rendition of "Green, Green Rocky Road," originally by Dave Van Ronk, though for this I was taking inspiration more from the [Oscar Isaac cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q5m2DEf7ag) from the _Inside Llewyn Davis_ soundtrack. Honorable mention goes to [Hang Me, Oh Hang Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzH4he7hP8), also from that soundtrack, but ultimately I decided it was too depressing. It's actually astoundingly difficult to hunt down a folk song that's has a melancholy sound but isn't about homelessness, death, or betrayal.
> 
> Bree's song is written by yours truly, mostly because I couldn't find a song with quite the right tone of cheerful sexual innuendo. It's only a verse and a chorus long because that's about the point that I came to my senses and realized that I'm not, actually, Tolkien, and I'm not writing music for fun. "Consider the Thorns" was almost the title of this story, though I think I ultimately decided to steal it for the sequel instead, as it's so delightfully thematic of their entire relationship.
> 
> The ending song is, of course, "Whiskey in the Jar." (Also slightly edited.) I particularly favor [this version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF9vECI7aMo) by the High Kings.


	3. Chapter 3

The fourth day, Miss Baggins manages to mount, unaided, from the ground, prompting much applause from the group, and the ride proceeds pleasantly enough for most of the morning. When Thorin keeps them riding throughout their usual lunch stop, however, there's more than a few grumpy comments, and when he turns around to say something to Balin he sees Miss Baggins glaring _daggers_ at his back. Very fond of her meals, is Miss Baggins, Thorin thinks, amused, and keeps going. They'll all have to do without lunch more than a time or two on this journey, and he has good reason to keep them moving.

Thorin is the first to admit that he's not very good at finding his way around topside. He was born and bred to stone, and while he can tell north from north-east half a mile underground, he can't say the same on the surface of the world, without the path of the sun to guide him. (Despite what Dwalin likes to tease, even Thorin can manage to remember the the sun sets in the west.) He can read a map well enough, though, and he's learned Ranger trail sign over his years in the western lands, and so when some of the others shout questions at him as he leads their party down a small side path off the main road, he ignores them. He knows exactly where he's going, and if they'll just be patient, he's fairly certain they'll all cease to complain.

The path opens out ahead of them abruptly, and as the rest of them ride out into the clearing, Thorin basks in the satisfaction of the stunned silence.

They're standing on the bank of one of the offshoots of the River Hoarwell, at the elbow of a wide, lazy curve. The water burbles lowly over the rocks, slow and shallow here, but there's a dark patch a ways out where there's a deep hollow in the bed. Deep enough for even a tall dwarf to submerge up to his neck, if he so chooses.

"Is this what I think it is?" Gloin says finally.

"Oh, Mahal, does that mean I get to take a bath?" Dori cries. "Say it isn't so."

"Enjoy the chance while you have it, lads and hobbit," Thorin says, unable to hide his grin anymore. "This may be the last bathing-hole this side of the Misty Mountains."

It takes much less time than usual for the others to get their horses untacked and tied, and then a whole pack of dwarves are stripping clothing willy-nilly and lunging into the water like demented hooligans. Thorin follows at a more sedate pace, as he has no desire to be trampled by his overeager companions, but pauses with his shirt half-undone when he realizes that Miss Baggins isn't joining them.

"Surely you don't mean to stay on the shore," he says, disbelievingly.

"Hmm?" she says absently, her gaze fixed somewhere a little below his chin, and then she flushes and looks back up to his face. "No, don't be foolish. I'm going to go a ways down the river to get my bath, in _privacy,_ like a normal person."

He narrows his eyes at her and resists the urge to look down at himself. Just what was she staring at, anyway? Surely he can't look as odd as all that. "You're saying to plan to get _out of sight_ to bathe, in a strange place, with no weapons?"

Her eyes narrow right back. "I'm saying that if I catch any single one of you louts within eyeshot, I'm borrowing one of Fili's knives to stab that person somewhere they'll dearly regret."

Really, of all the outlandish…! "I can assure you that your _virtue,_ such as it is, is quite safe with us," he growls. "You needn't worry over that."

" _Such as it is,"_ she hisses, and her eyes flash with such rage that he's a little afeared for his own private parts, in truth. It's a good thing she doesn't have a blade on her now, is all he can think. "One of these days, Thorin Oakenshield, someone's going to cut that uncivil tongue from your head, and I only hope I'm there to witness."

She stomps off down the shore, as much as one can stomp on the slippery piles of water-worn stones that line the beach, and Thorin watches her go, shaking his head. _Did that just happen, or did I imagine it as some sort of fever-dream?_ he wonders. And then: _No, she really just said that._

Part of him wants to storm after her and demand satisfaction for that comment, but the wiser part of him knows that it won't go well for either of them. Instead, he just shakes his head again, and finishes stripping down to his smallclothes. He has a chance to get clean, and he isn't going to waste it arguing with a stubborn hobbit.

An hour later, the pack of them haul themselves, dripping, to the shore. Gandalf declined to join them in the bathing-hole, because apparently wizards don't have to worry about such petty concerns, and he and Miss Baggins have built up a fine bonfire near the ponies, ready to cook dinner when they catch it. She's wearing her spare trousers and shirt, the sleeves rolled up, and he can see her other clothes, still damp but drying on a nearby rock. Took the opportunity to clean the rest of her clothes, then. Practical. He and the lads did the same, but Dori glared at them until they did the spares as well, so now they're sprawled out near the fire, clad in nothing but wet trousers.

Miss Baggins bends her head to stir the fire, but Thorin can see the flush crawling up the back of her neck. A bit too much nakedness for even their fearless hobbit, Thorin thinks with a smirk, his good mood restored. Her long copper-gold hair is still damp, looking more a dull red from the water, and already tightly braided once more. She must have bathed much more quickly than they, but then again, he suspects she didn't want to risk one of them coming after her, just in case.

Bombur produces his set of fish hooks and a couple coils of long, thin wire, and Bofur sets to whittling a couple long sticks into suitable poles. Dori breaks out part of his precious store of dry rice to serve with the fish, and Miss Baggins, declining the pleasure of fishing with the others ("Hobbits of Hobbiton don't _fish_ , if you want one of those you should have gone down to Buckland"), goes off instead with Fili and Kili as they try to hunt some small game. Their chances to hunt and dry meat will get fewer and further between as they travel, and so they're still attempting to stock up every chance they get.

This is the first time Miss Baggins has joined them, but Thorin can at least be assured that she can stay quiet enough not to scare off game, even if she can't actually help. Kili and Fili have made a pet of her, as young lads are wont to do with attractive young women, so they're over-eager to include her when she's not actually useful.

Thorin himself takes the afternoon to clean, sharpen, and air out every weapon and piece of clothing he owns. He was on the road for some weeks longer than the rest of the party, contacting various far-flung settlements of dwarrows in the lands of men to try and find willing souls for their quest to the dragon, and he also took some pains to stay away from towns and trading-houses. He hasn't forgotten the price on his head, nor the likely attempt to collect it before Gandalf stuck his enormous nose in as always, and he hasn't been eager to serve himself into some brigand's hands before he has a chance to see him homeland once more. Which meant that unlike the rest of the company, his gear hasn't seen proper care in months, at least. This is Thorin's first, and very likely last, chance to take care of that before the lands get wilder and the road gets rougher.

Dwalin and Gloin are still cleaning the fish when his nephews return, Miss Baggins at their heels, all three of them looking entirely pleased with themselves and their haul. And well they should, Thorin admits, with two fat coneys already drained of blood, and fully three ducks, plucked and ready for roasting.

"Fili got the rabbits," Kili tells him, unloading his bounty onto the beach near the fire. "I got the ducks, but Bree was the one who prepared them."

"And she _almost_ got a third rabbit," Fili adds. "With a stone. She missed by inches."

This sounds more like loyalty than truth to Thorin, but Miss Baggins shoves her hands in her pockets, looking awkward. "I used to be quite good at that as a lass, but that was nearly forty years ago. I'm a bit out of practice."

"You should try knives!" Bofur says. "If you can throw one, you can throw the other."

"Oh yes, I could teach you!" Kili says eagerly. "It'll be _much_ easier than mounting a pony and you figured that quickly enough, right?"

"That is a _terrible_ idea," Miss Baggins says firmly. "Me, with a blade, can you even imagine?"

"No," Thorin says flatly, causing Kili to close his mouth on whatever argument he's likely to make. "If the burglar wants to learn bladework, she's more than welcome, but she's certainly not here for her skill in battle." Unspoken, but hanging in the air between them nonetheless, is his following thought: _I still don't know why you're here at all._

Miss Baggins tilts up her chin, and he remembers that she's cross with him and braces himself, but she only says, "If I change my mind, Kili, I'll be sure to let you know."

Mollified, his nephew gives a little _hmmph._ "Fair enough," he says. "You want to help us clean the rabbit?"

"Might as well." She grimaces down at her muddy, grass-stained trousers. "And then another round of laundry, I think, before dinner."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Two hours later, all of them are clean, and well-fed, and full of good fellow feeling, which is when the singing inevitably starts. Kili and Fili noodle around on their pipes for a bit, and then Bofur talks them into playing an old ale hall favorite. Miss Baggins, cleaned up from her bout of butchery and back in her first set of clothes, starts laughing before they're through the first chorus, clapping in time. By the time they've gone a couple verses, she's shouting the refrain along with the rest of them.

         _They call it that good ol' mountain dew_  
         _and them that refuse it are few_  
         _I'll hush up my mug if you fill up my jug_  
         _with that good ol' mountain dew!_

Thorin lays back against the flat rock and soaks up the heat that remains still from the afternoon sunlight, his fingers laced behind his head, staring up at the stars. He doesn't have to tell them that this is the last night that it will be safe to make this much noise at camp at night, as they all know that on the other side of the river, the land grows a great deal less tame. Let them have their fun tonight.

The song draws to a close, and Kili pipes a quick little flourish to finish. The company falls about laughing and clapping, and Thorin hears Miss Baggins proclaim, "Well done, all of you! Now that one I _haven't_ heard before. I suspect it would take on well in the Shire, though, given our penchant for homebrew. I may have to introduce it when I eventually make my way home."

There's another burst of laughter, less because she said something funny than from a general overflow of good spirits. Thorin rolls his head to the side to watch them. She's bundled at the center of the crowd, as has become the habit since her attempted tree-climbing escapade the first night, her bare face flushed with laughter and firelight. _A contagious smile, has the burglar,_ Thorin finds himself thinking, and gets irritated all over again.

"Homebrew, hmm? I may have to visit the Shire more often meself," Bofur muses, but Miss Baggins just laughs some more and stretches out one furry foot to poke him in the side with her toes. "But enough of that, lass. You should sing us another song from your home."

She raises her eyebrows. "Should I indeed?"

"Oh yes, do!" Ori chimes in loudly, then looks a little awkward when the entire company turns to stare at him. "She has a good voice," he says defensively. Gloin snorts but seems to agree.

"Aye, you do at that, lass," he says. "And we'd all like to hear some more from your home."

She gives a little grimace at the word home, and Thorin rolls his head back to stare at the stars again so he won't have to see her face anymore. He knows she's homesick, underneath her general front of good cheer, and he doesn't like to think about the fact that she's likely to leave them at some point. He's gotten rather used to her over the last few days.

"Alright," she says, a little soft, and then she clears her throat and repeats, "Alright, another one my mother taught me."

"Is this anything like the last one?" Kili wonders. "Because if so, I don't know that my young ears are ready for such a thing."

"It is _not_ like the last one, you irrepressible flirt," she says sternly. "It's- oh, I don't know, just listen." And then she gives a little humming note, getting into tune, before launching into a soft melody that Thorin has to almost strain to hear.

         _Down yonder green valleys where streamlets meander,_  
         _Where twilight is fading, I pensively rove._  
         _Or at the bright noon-tide, in solitude wander_  
         _Amidst the dark shades of the lonely ash grove._

At the first line, Thorin nearly jerks upright, and stops himself only because he doesn't want to make a spectacle of himself in the middle of her song. Inwardly, though, he's seething. A song her mother taught her, is it? He twists his fingers together hard behind his head and glares up at the sky. She must be laughing at him, the wretched woman. And the company is eating it up, he can tell from the intent quality of their listening silence.

         _'Tis there where the blackbird is cheerfully singing,_  
         _Each warbler entranced with his note from a tree._  
         _Ah, then little think I of sorrow or sadness,_  
         _The ash grove entrancing spells beauty for me._

Miss Baggins trails off after the last note, and there's a moment of respectful silence before the others clap appreciatively. "Lovely tune, missus, lovely indeed," Dori says with a sigh, and even Dwalin gives a pleased rumble. _Dwalin!_

Unable to stand it, Thorin rolls up on one elbow and levels her with a glare. "Oh, aye," he says sarcastically. "Truly, a beautiful piece of your people's culture."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Have I offended you in some way, Mister Oakenshield?"

He almost laughs at the brazenness of that question. "A song your mother taught you, I believe you said," he said, and sneers. "The words may be in Westron, little mistress, but that tune is Elvish through and through. If your mother claimed it as her own, then she was more a thief than you are."

"Ugh, you sang an _Elvish_ song?" Dwalin says in disgust. "Not a very funny joke."

If looks could kill, Thorin would be on fire right now from nothing more than the force of Miss Baggins' glare. "It wasn't a _joke,_ " she says fiercely. "And I don't know where my mother learned it. It was just one of her favorites."

Balin, unexpectedly, comes to Thorin's side for the first time since the hobbit joined them. "Thorin's right, lass," he says, though he does sound sympathetic, and the look he sends Thorin's way across the fire is chiding. "I've heard it myself, in the halls of the woodland realm. It's a far sadder tale in their tongue, and they sing it in a great chorus, but the tune's the same right enough. It's hard to forget."

Miss Baggins wraps her arms around her middle and glares at them all impartially. "It was just something she sang to me when I was young," she grits out. "From now on, I won't offend you with any more cross-cultural mistakes!" And so saying, she gets up from the log she was sitting on and goes to seek her bed.

Silence pools in her wake, only to be broken by Ori's plaintive voice. "I thought she sounded very nice," he says quietly, and only tilts his chin up when Dori tries to hiss him silent. "What? She did."

Dwalin snorts. "Not with elvish caterwauling, she didn't," he says definitively, and yanks out his pipe. "Just as well, really."

Some of the others might be more of Ori's mind, but none of them say so, and after a moment, Kili starts piping an old marching tune to fill the silence. Thorin rolls over onto his back again, and scowls up at the sky. _It's not my fault that her mother misrepresented the truth,_ he reasons to himself. Besides, he knows the look of a frustrated temper, and thinks that she'll likely be well enough in the morning, when she's had time to get over her sulk.

So decided, he joins the others for a smoke before seeking his own bed. If Miss Baggins is still awake, she doesn't stir when he settles in, curled into a tight little ball within her bedroll, only her braid visible. He stares at the long rope of it, painted almost ashen by the faint light of the crescent moon, for far longer than he likes to admit before sleep finally claims him.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next day, they're all quiet and solemn as they break camp, perhaps understanding without the words that the ride from here on out is a little more dangerous. Even Miss Baggins is silent as she tacks up Myrtle and mounts (without assistance, but from a fallen tree trunk: Thorin isn't going to complain) and he attributes that to her catching the mood of the others. After they detour back up the path and go clomping across the bridge, however, a few of the others fall to laughing and joking, if quietly, and she remains silent. When he glances back, she's staring at him, lips pursed, frowning unhappily. When she notices him looking back at her, she huffs and looks away, hunched miserably under her fine little traveling-cloak, looking like nothing so much as a cat left out in the rain.

So he's the cause of her ill temper, still, is he? Thorin sighs and turns back around in the saddle. He hadn't meant to give such great offense as all that, but in in the cold light of day, his ill-temper on the subject seems a little… excessive. The rest of the company enjoyed it well enough, and what was the harm, really? Balin, the only other among them to recognize the tune, would have held his tongue if Thorin had been able to do so in turn.

Well, nothing to be done about it now. He'll have to be more careful in the future, is all. He'd hate to cause offense accidentally—if he's to tweak the burglar's tail, he'd prefer to do it a-purpose.

Miss Baggins perks up a bit by the time they make their camp in the shadow of a large outcropping around sunset, and chats personably enough with Ori, at least. Their youngest member looks a little baffled at the sudden attention, but he's smiling at her shyly and offering to help her forage to fill their packs, and instead of demurring, she smiles back and allows as how that'd be quite pleasant. They rise and slip off into the woods while Óin minds the cook-pot, after a glance to Dwalin for permission, and Dori beams after the pair of them like a proud parent. Thorin feels a little disgusted by the display, but at least the hobbit isn't likely to sneak off on them tonight, at least.

That night Kili and Fili take first watch, and Thorin stays up for a while, talking to the two of them and Balin about the path that they're taking. Balin knows these roads better than any in their party, and Kili and Fili are his scouts, so it's easier to sort things out with them ahead of time, and they're going to have to go off-road soon enough. Thorin has little intention of running into the elven scouts that patrol the roadways even this far west, and even less intention of drawing the attention of drawing the attention of the occasional roving packs of brigands that like to lurk around the edges of the lowlands. His party would make a very poor target indeed for thievery, but why take the chance?

He has every intention of seeking his bed when their conversation winds down, but ends up dozing off sitting up against the rock instead. He has what seems nothing more than a few moments of strange, disjointed dreams, full of white light and fire, and wakes to the sound of Miss Baggins saying-

"Orcs?"

"Throat cutters," comes Fili's reply, far calmer than Thorin would expect. Thorin looks around for whatever caught their attention, but the rest of the camp lies still, most of them asleep. The fire's burned down to a few smouldering embers, later than he thought, and only Miss Baggins is on her feet. She's looking over at his nephews, hands tucked under her arm as guard against fear or chill or both, and hasn't noticed him waking. "There'll be dozens of 'em out there. The lowlands are crawlin' with them."

It's only when Kili chimes in, a shade too much relish in his voice, that Thorin realizes what's going on.

"They like to strike in the wee small hours, when everyone's asleep. Quick and quiet, no screams, just lots of blood."

It's the soft snicker that tears at the fraying edges of his temper— _laughter,_ as if orcs are naught but some bogeyman to tease the youngest and weakest among them. Like it's all some great lark, like they haven't lost kin beyond counting to the black tide. "You think that's funny?" he says, coming to his feet behind Miss Baggins. She flinches at the sound of his voice, a fine shiver that runs across her narrow shoulders and quakes the end of her braid, but she holds still as he paces behind her. "You think a night raid by orcs is a joke?"

Kili flinches back, a little wounded. "We didn't mean anything by it," he protests.

But Thorin isn't appeased. It's not the tense line of Miss Baggins' back that bothers him—they can tease her with imagined terrors till end of days for all he cares, as long as they don't drive her away while he's at it. It's the casual disregard for the _filth_ that took their family: their king, their grandfather, their uncle. Even their father, by way of the battle sickness that spread through the camps after, and sapped away what health their father had. To hear his kin speak so casually, so _jokingly_ of orcs—it boils his blood, till it's hard not to shout.

"No, you didn't," he says harshly. "You know nothing of the world." And then he stalks off to the cliff's edge, shouldering past Miss Baggins as he goes.

Behind him, Balin speaks up, trying to soothe his nephews' wounded feelings. He spins the tale of the Battle of Azanulbizar, something that they must have heard a dozen times, but Thorin shuts out his words. He doesn't need to hear Balin's romanticizing to picture the carnage of that field, because he lives it every day, in his dreams or his waking hours. He can't shut out Balin's tripe about Thorin's victory, though, and he shakes his head as his old friend winds down, turning to find the rest of the company wide awake and on their feet, staring at him.

_Damn Balin anyway._

He walks past them as if they aren't there, making for his bedroll next to the fire, and finds that Miss Baggins is the only one still seated, her knees curled to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She’s also the only one to meet his burning gaze when it sweeps about the camp, even as the others fall back with varying degrees of shame at being caught.

"But the pale orc?" she questions, her hushed little voice loud in the tight silence. "What happened to him?"

Thorin stomps to his bedroll and flops down with more enthusiasm than grace. "He slunk back into the hole from whence he came," he growls. "That filth died of his wounds long ago."

"Hmm," she says, but she casts him a sideways glance. The look is warm enough, for the testy hobbit, and he glares back at her, not interested in her sympathy. He pointedly turns his back on the foolish lot of them, wrapping his blanket angrily over his shoulders.

"Get some sleep," he commands them gruffly. "We ride hard tomorrow." Behind him, there is a general scramble to obey, but it's a long moment before he can hear Miss Baggins shift and curl up under her own blankets.

_Foolish hobbit should leave well enough alone,_ he thinks angrily, forgetting for the moment that his nephews were the ones to tease her, not the other way around. He closes his eyes, and ignores the stinging behind his lids, the visions of carnage he can't escape, no matter how many years separate him from that battlefield.

And then, on the sixth day, it rains.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Luckily for all of them, it doesn't start pouring. Even very good oilskin cloaks aren't well-made to stand up to heavy rains, and the ponies would have slow going indeed if the rain were to wash out the road too much. As it is, they have to slow down a bit and space out due to slipping in the mud, and all of them sit hunched in their cloaks, looking varying degrees of frustrated with the persistent drizzle. Bofur is puffing amiably on his pipe, looking fairly in charity with the world at large, which leads Thorin to believe that he's packed his pipe with something more than tobacco, but Dori looks like a wet cat, hunched miserably under his hood and twice as grumpy.

"Here now, Mister Gandalf, can't you do something about this rain?" he calls forward. "I can't feel my fingers."

Thorin privately feels that this is something of an exaggeration, what with it being the peak of summer, and Gandalf must agree, because he huffs and says, "It is raining, Master Dwarf, and it will continue to rain until the rain is done. If you wish to change the weather of the world, you should find yourself another wizard."

There's a thoughtful pause, and then Miss Baggins says, with a tone of innocent curiosity that Thorin mistrusts immediately, "Are there any?"

"What?"

"Any other wizards?" Miss Baggins prompts. "I've only ever heard stories about you, Gandalf."

"Well, I travel quite a bit more," Gandalf replies. He looks the least discomfited by the rain, but Thorin has long since given up expected Gandalf to be affected by such petty mortal concerns. "There are five of us, as it happens. The greatest of our order is Saruman, the White. Then there are the two Blue Wizards… You know, I've quite forgotten their names." Gandalf shrugs, apparently unconcerned with this lapse in memory, and when he falls silent, Miss Baggins clears her throat.

"And who is the fifth?"

Gandalf starts, apparently having not realized that he wasn't quite finished with his recitation. "Well, that would be Radagast. Radagast the Brown."

"And is he a great wizard or is he… more like you?" Miss Baggins asks. At this, Gandalf turns around in his saddle and glares over past Thorin's shoulder, where the hobbit is riding a few ponies back. Whatever he sees on her face makes him turn back around with a huff, allowing the comment to pass.

"I think he's a very great wizard, in his own way. He's a gentle soul who prefers the company of animals to others. He keeps a watchful eye over the vast forest lands to the East, and a good thing too, for always evil will look to find a foothold in this world."

"He sounds like he'd be right at home in the Shire," Nori says teasingly, and Miss Baggins gives an amused huff of laughter.

"We prefer growing things in the earth, generally," she says. "When we raise animals, it's either to work the farms or to eat. From the sound of things, I don't think Master Radagast would approve at all."

A stray drop of rain slides off the hood to land on Thorin's nose, and he huffs explosively, swiping it away with one annoyed hand. "Why anyone would want to be compared to a hobbit is beyond me," he mutters—not quietly enough, judging from the sudden and echoing silence behind him.

" _Someone_ doesn't like the rain very much," Balin says to the general air, as if trying to excuse Thorin's bad manners.

Thorin isn't in any kind of mood to be excused, and likely would have replied with a comment past discourteous and into truly rude had not Dwalin silenced him with a warning look before he could so much as open his mouth. Dwalin has never been one for conversational niceties, and less so for sparing his brother the sharp side of his tongue, so if Dwalin is counseling restraint, it serves him well to listen.

"Ach, it's nothing a hot meal can't remedy," Óin says comfortably, oblivious to the byplay. "The burglar will see to it for us, won't you, lass?" 

"That's right, it's our burglar's turn at the cook-pot!" Fili cries, followed a breath later by his brother: "Yeah, Bree, what are we having?"

"Nothing for nosy dwarves who don't understand the meaning of the word _surprise,_ " replies Miss Baggins, repressively. "You're a man grown, Kili, haven't you ever heard the one about the fate of the curious cat?"

"Yeah, but satisfaction brought it back," says Kili, ever-irrepressible. "I want to know what you're making! You and Ori brought back all sorts of, of _leaves_ and things last night."

"What my brother's trying to say is that he'd rather not be poisoned, if it's all the same to Your Ladyship," Fili adds, all earnest innocence. "Dwarven gullets can take a lot, but it's a long ride tomorrow for a sour belly."

"I should box both your ears," Miss Baggins fires back comfortably, with none of the flash and temper that would have resulted if Thorin had dared to utter such. "You ate well enough at my table before, you'd think you'd manage to trust me with one measly stew-pot!"

Nori jeers at the brother's backs, and Bofur hastens to assure the burglar of his faith in her skills even as Kili decries his brother's accusations, but Thorin ignores the furor in favor of frowning down at the road between his pony's ears. They've all taken their rounds at the cook-pot, of course, save for the few among them that are truly hopeless, but Miss Baggins has largely been left to her own devices in the evenings, with no part of the chores shared freely among the rest of their company. It's likely the only task she's fit to do, but all her skill in a kitchen could come to naught over an open fire, if she doesn't have the knack. She supposedly traveled a bit in her youth, but-

Dwalin guides his pony a bit closer and leans in confidingly. "Can't be worse than Kili," he rumbles, taking care enough that his voice doesn't travel down the line. "Or my brother."

Thorin finds himself smiling, all-unwilling. A fine warrior, Balin is, a clever tactician and a wise statesman, but Thorin's had dinner at his table, and he's not eager to repeat the experience on the road without a latrine in sight.

"True that," he agrees, and rests his hand on his friend's knee for just a moment, in quiet thanks, before he steers his pony ahead once more.

When he looks back, some minutes later, the lads are still bickering, but Miss Baggins is silent, her gray eyes fixed on him from underneath the hood of her fine little cloak. She catches his gaze and flushes slightly, then lifts two fingers to her brow in ironic salute as her lips curve in a smile neither welcoming nor filled with mockery, but somewhere between the two.

He snaps his gaze back to the front, and says no more for the rest of the ride.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The rain stops eventually, thank the Maker, and they make camp well enough, Bifur coaxing a respectable fire out of the wet wood with patient hands. Miss Baggins sets to making dinner as soon as the flames bite high enough, and there’s a great deal of laughter and nosy fingers poking about the stew pot, but Miss Baggins, as ever, stands firm. Eventually Dwalin gets tired of the noise and chases them back to their work, and in thanks, she allows him the privilege of first taste—to let her know, as she says with a smile, if she’s added enough salt. Apparently she has, from the way she shortly finds herself chasing Dwalin away, this time with the back of her spoon.

Dwalin goes chuckling, and Thorin grits his teeth and turns his back on the camp, finding a seat some distance away. Deathless could use sharpening, he decides, ignoring the fact he did the same not two days ago. After all, who knows what the road will bring?

When the edge is sharp enough to cut the very air itself, and his axe could likewise slice a feather in twain under nothing but its own weight, Thorin eyes the clump of laughing dwarves clustered around the campfire, then goes to retrieve Kili's spare daggers from his pack. Kili never remembers to care for his blades the way he does his arrows, after all. Thorin would be doing him a favor.

It takes a time, but eventually his bad mood starts to fade under the whetstone's steady stroke, the rhythmic motion of the familiar old chore soothing away much of his irritation. It's an old trick, from when he was younger and much-vexed by a particularly obnoxious younger sibling, to drain away his ill-temper with make-work. Dís teased him for that, as well, of course—told him he was wasted as royalty, when he'd do so much better as a blacksmith, so he might as well abdicate and leave the crown to her.

She stopped teasing him when the dragon came, and his craft was sometimes all that kept his people fed during the lean times. He's lucky, he knows, because the work could so easily have become a bitter pill indeed from the necessity of it, but instead he learned to take his rage and dissipate it into the simple, soothing pleasure of making something with his hands. Sharpening a dagger is a pale imitation, of course, but it's better than stomping back into camp and picking a fight with Miss Baggins—who hasn't, after all, done anything in particular to earn his ire.

At least, not today.

The sun slips down and still he works, even as the rest of the company falls quiet, taking their full bellies to their own bedrolls and their own pursuits. It's not until he's cleaning up, wiping down his whetstone with a scrap of cloth and turning to store it in his pack, that he sees the bowl sitting at his elbow. It's brimming with food, Kili's venison wrapped in some sort of leaves and laid across roasted potatoes, and it smells agonizingly good to his empty belly. He thought to make do with a crust of waybread, as fair penance for his surly temper, but here instead lies his supper. When he picks up the bowl, he finds it's even still warm.

He also didn't hear so much as a whisper of movement behind him—and he should have, even focused on his work as he'd been. He doesn't have Balin's absurd bat-ears, but neither are his senses as poor as all that. He looks across the camp to where Miss Baggins is sitting, knees curled to her chest and staring so intently at the fire that one might be forgiven for noticing the way her gaze darts occasionally in his direction.

_Cocky halfling._ Was it pity that moved her, he wondered, Balin's grand tale of woe warming her flinty heart where his stern manners have not? Or merely the desire to show off, after his various and sundry imprecations against her skill? Either way, he won't spurn food when it's handed to him, no matter the source—and the next time her eyes turn carefully his way, he raises the tip of his belt knife to his forehead in mocking salute before he takes a bite.

It's delicious, of course.

Later, when all but the lone night-guard have gone to their beds, Thorin takes the bowl, scrubbed clean with water from his skin and a handful of leaves, and crosses the camp to return it to her. She’s curled into a tangled knot of blankets with her back against a fallen log, to all appearances deeply asleep, but when he crouches down to ease the bowl inside the unfastened top of her pack, her eyes slit open. He freezes, caught with one hand still outstretched, but she merely blinks at him with hazy eyes and mumbles, "I hope it was satisfactory."

Her voice is husky, her words slightly slurred from her slumber, and he sighs to himself at the realization that she stole up to him fully awake and aware with not so much as a twitch of his beard, but he couldn't do the same even while she was off in dreamland. _Either you're getting old, or she's every bit the burglar Gandalf named her,_ Thorin thinks with a certain amount of rue. _You'd better hope it's the latter._

"More than," he murmurs back, pulling his hand free from her pack with a guilty tug. "Much obliged for the loan, mistress."

"I told you, it's just Bree."

"...aye," he says, a beat too late for courtesy. She rolls her eyes and hitches the blanket higher over her shoulder, all but disappearing underneath of it.

"Just something to consider," she mutters peevishly, and closes her eyes once more.

He lingers a moment, doing up the catches on her pack so no small creatures can enter in the night, studying her narrow little face out of the corner of his eye. He's grown used to bare chins, over the decades; he's spent too much time in the towns of Men to be otherwise. Still, she's different enough for all of that: her cheeks a little rounder, her eyes a little larger, her nose a little more pointed. She looks delicate to his dwarven eye, almost childlike in her fragility—save for for the firm ridge of bone and sinew at her upper jaw, where it connects to her ridiculous ears. They're almost shamefully bare, not so much as a silver cuff at the point or a steel stud in the lobe, but perhaps hobbits don't adorn themselves with jewelry. It seems very strange to him.

Even as he watches, the nearest one twitches a little, reacting to a soft snore from the other side of camp. _Bat ears indeed,_ he thinks, amused, and straightens from his crouch. She shifts restlessly as his shadow falls over her, long eyelashes fluttering against her pale cheek, and he stands there for just a moment more, thinking-

_None of that,_ he tells himself sharply, and turns away. _None of that, as you value your sanity._

It takes him some time to fall asleep that night, staring up at the stars. But when he slumbers, his dreams turn not to the mountain, or to battlefields with loss beyond counting. In fact, for the first time in more months than he can name, he doesn’t dream of anything at all.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The rain returns for a few hours the next morning, but it's no more than a mist and clears away before noon, leaving them all in high spirits. Those with pipes light them as they ride, and the musky smell of the tobacco mingles with the wet green smell of the earth and leaves them all loose and smiling, even the hobbit. More than once, Thorin hears laughter or a snatch of humming drift back from where Miss Baggins is riding clustered with his nephews at the head of the line, but for the first time since she joined their number, the sound of it doesn't grit his teeth or stiffen his spine.

Maybe it’s the tobacco.

It's only when the sun starts to stoop low in the sky that Thorin realizes they've been riding all day without break, and nary a peep of complaint has he heard from the burglar. She didn't even bother them about stopping for lunch—he remembers seeing her nibbling on a piece of waybread sometime around noon, arguing fiercely with Gloin about either embroidery or sword-fighting, her gestures could be either. Now she's whispering to Kili about something that seems to merit a great deal of giggling from both of them, one hand easy on the reins and the other darting through the air like a fish in exuberant explanation, the back of her neck flushed from the summer sun and his nephew's teasing. She doesn't look like a reluctant interloper, dreaming of her hearth and her handkerchiefs. She looks almost… happy.

Thorin watches the long rope of her braid swaying with her pony's easy rocking gait, and for the first time he feels like maybe they might not have erred, taking her along on this journey.

"As I have said several times, you badgering lump," her voice rings out suddenly, "the answer is _no._ "

The rest of the party falls silent to listen, and Miss Baggins looks guiltily back over her shoulder. Upon seeing their gazes fixed on her, she turns to hiss something at Kili.

His nephew just laughs and doesn't bother to quiet his voice. "C'mon, it can't be as bad as all that."

"It's _fine,_ thank you very much." Her small form radiates indignation, which Thorin could have told her would only spur them on. They've picked at their mother in just such a way more times than Thorin can count, and she's never managed to outlast them, either.

"Aw, I dunno." Fili nudges his pony in close on her other side, boxing her in with an obnoxious grin on his face. "Sounds to me like you're ashamed of it."

"I should box your ears, the pair of you!"

Dwalin clears his throat ostentatiously, silencing them all and earning a round of guilty looks. "What's this, then?"

"Turns out Bree's a songstress as well as a burglar!" Kili calls, despite the halfling's best attempt to wave him quiet. "Apparently she's written a fine drinking song of her own, but she's holding out on us and won't let us hear it."

"Ooh, a drinking song, is it?" Bofur teases. "You'll _have_ to sing it now; this lot'll never leave you be."

"Yeah, we're stubborn!" Thorin can hear the grin in Kili's voice as clear as day. "You might as well give up now."

She shoots a vaguely desperate glance over her shoulder towards Thorin. "We're supposed be keeping our voices low," she says, pinning him with her gaze. "Isn't that right?"

"Aye," he says, and allows relief to flash across her face for one brief, shining moment before he adds, as gruff as he can through the smile that wants to break free, "But I think an exception can be made."

Her mouth goes slack with shock even as Kili whoops in victory. "That's a yes, that's a yes! C'mon, you can't back out now, even Uncle approves."

"...I suppose I can't," she says. Her flinty gaze stabs at him, the promise of vengeance implicit, and he smirks back at her, tipping his chin in lazy challenge. She glares at him a moment more and then turns back 'round in the saddle with a huff. "Very well, then. If you insist."

"We do!" cries Fili, quickly followed by his brother, and Bofur, and Dwalin—though he, at least, very carefully doesn't look at Thorin as he says it.

Miss Baggins straightens in her saddle and squares up her narrow shoulders. "It goes," she says, with great dignity, "a little something like this," and then she takes a deep breath and begins.

         _There is an inn, a merry old inn_  
         _beneath an old grey hill,_  
         _And there they brew a beer so brown_  
         _That the Man in the Moon himself came down_  
         _One night to drink his fill._

The fast patter of the melody seems to merge into the steady drum of the ponies' hooves, and Thorin draws pipe-smoke into his lungs as he listens, amusement curling comfortably at the bottom of his chest. Her bright coppery voice seems made for golden summer afternoons, and he can hear a smile in her voice, for all her earlier reluctance. Later she'll remember his trick and make him pay for it, like as not, but for now, at least, he has the company of the twelve most stalwart dwarves west of the Misty Mountains and surely the most unlikely burglar in all of Middle-Earth, and that's no small thing.

         _Then the ostler said to his tipsy cat;_  
         _"The white horses of the moon,_  
         _They neigh and champ their silver bits;_  
         _But their master's been and drowned his wits,_  
         _and the Sun'll be rising soon!"_

Thorin smiles between his pony's ears, lazy and warm from the tobacco and something not entirely unlike contentment, and lets her voice carry them down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first campfire song is [Good Old Mountain Dew,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Old_Mountain_Dew) an Appalachian folk song that has as many verses as it does versions. I'm particularly partial to [Willie Nelson's cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlcCigNf4xI).
> 
> Bree's "elven song" is [The Ash Grove,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ash_Grove) a Welsh folk song with even _more_ versions. The lyrics included here are the ones I sang when I was at summer camp as a girl, but [this cover by Laura Wright](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az59BqslOAE) is particularly pretty.
> 
> Bree's song at the end is of course none other than [The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late](http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Moon_Stayed_Up_Too_Late), written by none other than Bilbo Baggins himself in LoTR. If you've seen the extended version of AUJ, you're probably familiar with it: check out [Bofur's Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiRZY80Jjqk) if you haven't seen it yet. I think we're supposed to assume that it's a dwarven song in this version because of the way the company sings along, but I choose to believe that they just badger Bree into singing it often enough that they all have it memorized by the time they get to Rivendell.
> 
> And that's all for now, folks. Hope you enjoyed! I have the sequel _almost_ done, just going through final round of edits currently. Hopefully should have it up in a week or two.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [sorrelchestnut over on tumblr](http://sorrelchestnut.tumblr.com/), come by and say hi whenever!


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